


we all have a hunger

by Brzeczyszczykiewicz



Series: Feliks + the Machine [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 17:22:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14773928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brzeczyszczykiewicz/pseuds/Brzeczyszczykiewicz
Summary: The partitions of Poland send Feliks spiraling into uncertainty, and he becomes frozen in time - but the sun must come out again, and in time, it will for Feliks as well.





	we all have a hunger

_ At seventeen I started to starve myself _

_ I thought that love was a kind of emptiness _

_ And at least I understood then the hunger I felt _

_ And I didn’t have to call it loneliness _

 

The first few weeks after the partition was confusing for Feliks. He could remember feeling intense pain, of course; he had been ripped apart and conquered and, frankly, Gilbert’s smug grin and thick leather shoes did not help Feliks’ failing state.

He remembered the intensely cold rooms where his three conquerors set out to divide their time with the former power. Roderich had argued, against the wishes of Gilbert, who had loudly argued that as the one inheriting his most developed and populated lands that he should have the sole right to housing Feliks, that the three should share Feliks between themselves, rotating him throughout the year.

 

It was with a bitterness that Feliks went to Ivan first, for the Russian did not torture the Pole but made it known that Feliks was inferior to him; he was indeed just a child-

_ Bullshit. I’m half a millenium older than you. _

-and he simply needed the guidance of a more powerful nation. 

When Feliks entered his freezing household in the goddamned city of Moscow, he felt empty. The house was lit with a thousand candles, and servants whizzed by - Feliks noted Iryna and Eduard and many others he had once spent his days with with a grim sadness - but despite the regal aura of the palace and its inhabitants, Feliks felt terribly alone. 

He could not bring himself to face Tolys - after all, the man hated him with a passion.

And so Feliks lived his first few days as a mere colony alone, in a cold bed, eating nothing except the last shreds of the memories he maintained from a time where the sun warmed his skin and the air filled his lungs with a comforting freedom - 

Here, in this palace of a prison, the air in his lungs felt stale, and the world went cold and gray. 

 

Each of his occupiers -  _ that’s right, you don’t own me, and this is temporary, let me assure you -  _ were unique in their treatment of the Pole. Gilbert’s style was that of treating him as both a rebellious child and as a servant to abuse - and quite viciously - and Feliks could hardly talk to the other states living in the Prussian’s household, for he refused to speak German and as a result was beaten harder.

Gilbert did not provide ample supplies at all. He preferred to keep him locked up in a room, and at night would visit him and, as he explained it to Francis and Antonio later,  _ make use of his conquest. _

Feliks died a little each night. He wouldn’t have eaten the stale bread provided him if he wanted to.

He wanted to spend his time in the forests just outside the palace grounds, where he could dress in his own clothing and sing softly in his beloved language as the trees around him revealed hidden berries to his delight. 

But Gilbert never gave him such a mercy. He flung books of German literature at the thinning man and demanded he memorize a passage each night, or else.

Feliks mastered the language quite well - he knew it better than perhaps Gilbert himself - but he refused to speak it. It was an act of defiance that he was able to understand all of Gilbert’s rapid screams and cries and yet Gilbert could not understand Feliks’ simple prayers. 

It made Feliks spiteful inside. At every opportunity, he did anything to rebel against Gilbert’s rule.

It drove the Prussian mad, that he could not even  _ touch _ the Pole after his supposed death. His bruises and scars, though much more prominent and long-lasting now that he was no longer a nation, would always heal, and that bright light in his green eyes never once went out. He even jabbed them out once, and snickered at the Pole’s blind wanderings for a week, but then those eyes returned one night and Gilbert was left to fuming once more.

Yet despite such small pleasures, Feliks still felt an emptiness in his chest. His body, frail and weak, constantly reminded him of his imprisonment. And he could not shake that feeling, no matter how long he waited and resisted.

 

Upon arriving at Roderich’s stately mansion, Feliks was reunited with his siblings, and Erzsebet, and Feliciano, and many others living there with whom he was able to dance and sing with once more. Roderich was lenient, relatively, and under his hold Feliks was able to speak his language freely and visit his cities and citizens. His culture, suppressed as it was, survived well in Lublin and Kraków and Lwów. It was a peace he had not known for some time.

Yet despite this independence, Roderich was quick to note that Feliks was not  _ Poland, _ he was  _ Austrian Galicia _ . Poland did not exist anymore, and it would not exist anymore, and the blond man you see here is a representative from those regions, in transition to become proper Austrian provinces, he would say. 

Roderich was always arrogant about such matters. He was lenient, but that did not mean he was fair. 

The Austrian irritated Feliks more than anything. He always carried himself above even his wife, and proclaimed that his elegant Vienna was the capital of Europe; entire nations flocked just to be with him!

Under Roderich, Feliks entered a stage of suspension. A preserved item, to be admired at museums, but something that would ultimately become dusty and forgotten. With Ivan and Gilbert, there was an active hatred or movement against him - but then it was still a recognition of Feliks’ existence. 

Roderich tossed Feliks and the simple idea of his existence into a closet and locked it, and in this manner he was preserved, yes; but also forgotten. 

He did not eat at Roderich's, either. He scavenged some basic herbs and vegetables, but they were only for the illusion, and not for sustenance. 

An odd feeling, too - Feliks didn’t really feel hunger since his partitioning. It was as though that emptiness which infected his soul also kept him alive. 

_ No _ , Feliks would say,  _ I am not hungry _ , and he would push away his dinner plate and watch Roderich’s lips purse with annoyance, but as always he would move on without him.

 

No, Feliks thought, it is not a physical hunger, perhaps. 

He knew this much. His body did not just refuse to eat; it had to be surviving on something. 

When Feliks saw Tolys again, when he was back at Ivan’s house, he felt a pang of something in his gut.

The way that the Lithuanian survived, even though he was reduced to a tea maid for Ivan, woke something within Feliks. 

He had noticed the Lithuanian servicing the Russian in his office. He was dressed as a Russian, and he spoke Russian, and he served and ate Russian food, but there was something distinctly not Russian about him.

Feliks knew what it was when, on a free day that Ivan provided those subservient nations he proved worthy of such a gift (Feliks never received one), Tolys walked several kilometers to a remote field of rye. Feliks had followed him quite secretly, passing as a babushka, and when he reached the field he saw Tolys.

He was dressed in a traditional Lithuanian costume, which Feliks recognized as one from Vilnius, and he was dancing. 

_ He was dancing. _

Arms outstretched, he leaped into the air, and faintly Feliks could hear a melody, sung in Lithuanian, of times long past and of the world in all its beauty.

Tolys danced across the field, laughing and twirling and enjoying the sunshine.

 

_ Tell me what you need, oh, you look so free _

_ The way you use your body, baby, come on and work it for me _

_ Don’t let it get you down, you’re the best thing I’ve seen _

 

Something began to burn on Feliks’ skin, and then he realized that the sun was so bright now, and he could feel its heat. And it warmed him with an intensity he had not remembered for decades.

Something within him began to rumble.

His stomach. 

_ Am I hungry? _

(He was.)

He leapt up from his crouching position, and he began to twirl and spin, arms outstretched as well, and he smiled towards the bright blue sky, and he felt the wind around him and he laughed too. 

When he looked down, he found that his disguise had melted off of him, and he was wearing a traditional suit from Krakow. 

Surprised, he gripped his clothing, and looked up, shocked.

There, he found, was Tolys, looking at him with a similar expression of disbelief.

“Feliks?” Tolys whispered.

The Pole nodded. 

The pair stared at each other for an eternity. 

Feliks’ mind spun around. He knew Tolys hated him; how could he not?

Feliks began to turn around and walk back, but then Tolys grabbed his wrist.

The Pole stopped, and turned around to face the Lithuanian.

Tolys was crying.

“You’re here,” he said. “You asshole, why didn’t you come sooner?”

He grabbed Feliks and hugged him tightly.

The sun warmed him even more, and he could feel a happiness within him.

He began to cry, too, and he hugged Tolys back, and the two stood in that field of rye, and for a moment both could feel a hunger for one another and for the life they had lost. 

It ignited a passion - to breathe and dance and scream and fight and  _ live _ \- within them once more. And they felt alive. And they felt loved. And that was all they needed.

  
  


_ Oh, you and all your vibrant youth _

_ How could anything bad happen to you? _

_ You make a fool of death with your beauty, and for a moment _

_ I forget to worry _

**Author's Note:**

> This is my ^actual^ first piece, and it was inspired by Florence + the Machine's new song "Hunger". It's beautiful and inspiring, and I highly recommend listening to it and her music! 
> 
> Personally, I think many of her songs apply to different parts of Feliks' life, and I'm not sure if this counts as a songfic but I wanted to portray how maybe Feliks would've entered a depression or altered state after his death" in 1795.


End file.
